The 2021 British Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2021 for sponsorship reasons) was a Formula One motor race held on 18 July 2021 at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England. It was the tenth round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship and also featured the first ever "sprint qualifying" event in F1 – a new format run on the Saturday of the race weekend over a distance of . Three points were awarded to the winner of the Sprint, two to second place and one to third place. The results of the sprint qualifying decided the grid for the race on Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton qualified the fastest for the sprint's starting grid, but championship rival Max Verstappen would win the sprint qualification, giving him pole position for the race. On the first lap of the race, Verstappen and Hamilton collided going into Copse corner, which took Verstappen out of race and earned Hamilton a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision. Hamilton recovered from the penalty to win the race from Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas, achieving an eighth British Grand Prix win.

Background

The event, which was held over the weekend of July, was the only Formula One race at Silverstone in 2021, after the venue had held two races behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom during 2020; the 2020 British Grand Prix was won by Lewis Hamilton, while the other one-off race, the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, was won by Max Verstappen. This was the seventy-second time the British Grand Prix had formed a part of the world championship. In February 2021, the organisers at Silverstone Circuit said they hoped the race would have a capacity of a crowd of 140,000, but that this was dependent on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, which had forced the two races held at Silverstone in 2020 to be behind closed doors. Hamilton aimed to win the event for a record-breaking eighth time, having won the event seven times overall previously having first won the event in 2008 and going for his third consecutive British GP win having won the event the previous two seasons. The United Kingdom government allowed fans to return to live major sporting events on 17 May 2021 in limited numbers.

On 14 June 2021, the United Kingdom's government announced that a planned further easing of lockdown restrictions in England would be delayed from an original date of 21 June 2021 to 19 July 2021, a delay of four weeks and the day after the Silverstone race took place. This meant Silverstone would require special exemption to gain a capacity crowd and the circuit began work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to try and establish how many fans the venue would be allowed to host. On 24 June 2021, the British Grand Prix was given permission to take place with a full capacity crowd as a part of United Kingdom government's events research programme with ticket holders either required to provide evidence of negative lateral flow test carried out 48 hours before their attendance of the event or proof of double vaccination against the virus fourteen days before attending the first day of the event. Upon being asked for his reaction to news about Silverstone being permitted to have a capacity crowd, Hamilton said in a press conference prior to the Styrian Grand Prix that he feared allowing such big numbers of spectators to attend the event were "premature" but some of his fellow drivers, notably George Russell and Verstappen, were more positive about the news. Reportedly more of the spectators were women than in previous years.

On Thursday 15 July, one day prior to start of the weekend action, Lando Norris admitted in an interview to Craig Slater of Sky Sports his preparations for his home race were not ideal, stating he was "sore", "not in the perfect condition", and he was "struggling to get sleep" after he was mugged in an incident at Wembley Stadium after the UEFA Euro 2020 Final. Also on 15 July, McLaren made a statement confirming that three of their team had tested positive for COVID-19. Notably, chief executive officer Zak Brown was one of the three who were positive. Neither of the drivers had to self-isolate and the plans for the weekend were "unaffected." The event marked the seventieth anniversary of Scuderia Ferrari's first world championship Grand Prix win. A full-scale mock-up model illustrating what cars built to the planned 2022 aerodynamic regulations will look like was revealed at the venue on the Thursday before the Grand Prix.

Following the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen led the Drivers' Championship from Hamilton by 32 points, who leads third placed Sergio Pérez by 46 points. Red Bull Racing led Mercedes by 44 points in the Constructors' Championship. The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list, with no additional stand-in drivers for the race. Sole tyre supplier Pirelli allocated the C1, C2, and C3 compounds of tyre to be used in the race. The weekend saw the race debut of new rear-tyre construction following a successful test in practice at the previous event in Austria. The new construction is designed to improve safety, by preventing rear-tyre failures, such as those experienced by Lance Stroll and Verstappen at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier in the season.

Weekend format

The 2021 British Grand Prix was the first race in the season to implement the new sprint-qualifying format, with two others expected to do the same later in the season. It was agreed after the FIA, Formula One and all ten teams had reached a unanimous agreement, regarding the schedule of the weekend. This saw a change in the weekend format as well as the rules. Usually, Friday would host two practice sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Saturday would have the final practice in the morning with qualifying in the afternoon. Sunday would have just one session, the race. The sprint qualifying changes this format, and on a Friday there would be one practice session in the early afternoon and a traditional qualifying (to determine the sprint-qualifying starting order) in the evening. On a Saturday, the second practice would take place at noon, with a newly added sprint race happening in the afternoon. Sunday is unchanged in this format. This also meant that this was the first F1 weekend for many years with a Friday qualification season.

Formula One's director of data systems Rob Smedley said the sport would do the best it could to make sure that sprint-qualifying races do not become a "blur" for fans. Whilst ex-World Champion Sebastian Vettel has voiced his scepticism over the sprint-qualifying idea, drivers such as Hamilton, Carlos Sainz Jr., Fernando Alonso, and Russell have reacted positively with Formula One willingness to try a new format. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc suggested the sprint-qualifying experiments should not continue in the future if they were proven to be unsuccessful. Leclerc also said he believed that sprint qualifying would enable drivers to push "for a whole race". Changes to sporting regulations to accommodate sprint qualifying were approved by teams prior to the Austrian Grand Prix ready for approval from the FIA. Hamilton later revised his opinion, and he thought the new format probably "would not be too exciting" and saw it being "a train". Formula One managing director Ross Brawn said that the sprint-qualifying experiment could be the first of many Formula One format experiments. The weekend was the first time since the 1959 German Grand Prix at AVUS (where results of the Grand Prix itself were decided on aggregate with drivers completing two 30-lap heats) that a Grand Prix meeting had consisted of more than one race for Grand Prix cars during a weekend.

Sprint qualifying The sprint qualifying is a , seventeen laps for this event, race which would decide the starting order for the race on Sunday. The grid order for sprint qualifying would be decided via the normal Q1, Q2, Q3 qualifying session. The final classification of the sprint qualifying race would be the starting grid for the race. The winner of the sprint qualifying would be on pole. Additionally, sprint qualifying awards points to the top three finishers. The maximum time limit would be 60 minutes, and normal fuel flow limits would still apply. The top three in sprint qualifying would also be given a victory parade and special wreaths for their efforts.

Practice The first free practice session commenced on Friday at 14:30 BST in warm sunny conditions. Verstappen of Red Bull topped the timing sheets, 0.779 seconds ahead of Norris, who was second for McLaren. Reigning World Champion Hamilton was third for Mercedes, just 0.001 seconds slower than second-placed Norris.

The second free practice session took place on Saturday at 12:00 BST in sunny conditions. Verstappen topped the timing sheets again, 0.375 seconds ahead of Leclerc. Leclerc's teammate Sainz, was in third, 0.230 seconds behind. There were no major incidents in either of the practice sessions.

Qualifying Qualifying took place on Friday at 18:00 BST. Hamilton set the fastest time in qualifying, granting him first place for sprint qualifying ahead of Verstappen in second and his teammate Valtteri Bottas in third. As the winner of sprint qualifying would be given the title of polesitter, the driver who set the fastest time was instead named the event's speed king. Formula One's chief technical officer Pat Symonds said that control over how the title of pole position is declared lies with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and not Formula One Management.

Qualifying classification

DriverConstructor144 Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:26.7861:26.0231:26.1341233 Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing-Honda1:26.7511:26.3151:26.2092377 Valtteri BottasMercedes1:27.4871:26.7641:26.2383416 Charles LeclercFerrari1:27.0511:26.9191:26.8284511 Sergio PérezRed Bull Racing-Honda1:27.1211:27.0731:26.844564 Lando NorrisMcLaren-Mercedes1:27.4441:27.2201:26.897673 Daniel RicciardoMcLaren-Mercedes1:27.3231:27.1251:26.8997863 George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1:27.6711:27.0801:26.9718955 Carlos Sainz Jr.Ferrari1:27.3371:26.8481:27.0079105 Sebastian VettelAston Martin-Mercedes1:27.4931:27.1031:27.179101114 Fernando AlonsoAlpine-Renault1:27.5801:27.245N/A111210 Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1:27.6001:27.273N/A121331 Esteban OconAlpine-Renault1:27.4151:27.340N/A1314991:27.5951:27.617N/A141518 Lance StrollAston Martin-Mercedes1:28.0171:27.665N/A151622 Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri-Honda1:28.043N/AN/A16177 Kimi RäikkönenAlfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari1:28.062N/AN/A17186 Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1:28.254N/AN/A181947 Mick SchumacherHaas-Ferrari1:28.738N/AN/A19209Nikita MazepinHaas-Ferrari1:29.051N/AN/A20107% time: 1:32.823Source:

Sprint qualifying